


Yarders

by elldotsee



Series: Anniversary Ficlets 2020 [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: John Watson's Blog, M/M, Sally Donovan is not impressed, blog entry, casefic, set during s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25056250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elldotsee/pseuds/elldotsee
Summary: A missing diamond and a misunderstanding land John and Sherlock in hot water with the Yard.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Series: Anniversary Ficlets 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807645
Comments: 21
Kudos: 49
Collections: 10 Years of Sherlock





	Yarders

Since Sherlock scoffed at the last diamond case that came our way, this time when another one came into his inbox, I jumped at the chance. A missing diamond! How exciting. 

Plus, we’d had a rather dry spell since the aluminium crutch case and I was starting to worry for Sherlock’s mental health. There are only so many games of Cluedo, holes in the wall and smashed cups of tea one can take before one starts to get… yes alright, it was for my own sanity just as much as for his. I NEEDED A CASE. 

The client, who’d signed her email as simply Vivian, said that the diamond had gone missing from her home late last week after a breakin. It was a family heirloom, and while it was invaluable to the family, she couldn’t imagine who would be interested in it otherwise. I thought that sounded rather strange, because who _wouldn’t_ be interested in a diamond of any sort, but I’m not in the business. The diamond had belonged to her recently-deceased mother and as such, was removed from its safe to a dressing table to await burial with her body. Vivian said that all the doors and windows had been shut during the night, but when they awoke, the window of the bedroom in which the diamond had been was ajar. None of the occupants of the house had heard a sound during the night. 

I convinced Sherlock to come with me to at least investigate the house while I interviewed the family members. I didn’t learn much from Vivian or any of the staff remaining at the house (very few, as Vivian was the sole survivor of the estate and didn’t wish to live in such a large place any more). Neither her nor her mother had any known enemies. None of them knew the story behind where the diamond had come from, but had always assumed it was an important token of love for her. 

They had recently been contacted by a museum curator to discuss several of the pieces of artwork in the home. I asked if he had been round to the house, and Vivian said that he had, the week prior. She’d invited him for dinner while they discussed a few sculptures of interest. I took down his name and planned to follow up, but didn’t think it was terribly noteworthy. Sherlock, it appeared, had much more luck skulking around the outside of the property. 

On the way out of the family’s home, he excitedly explained that the window to Vivian’s mother’s room was set at least eight feet above the ground, the wall blank stone without any cracks or viable climbing vines. On the ground beneath the window, he had found green bits of paint on the rocks outside of the house, leading him to believe that someone had used a green ladder to climb up into the bedroom and steal the diamond. That gave us a potential _how_ , but what we still didn’t know was _who_ even knew about the diamond and _why_ they would want to steal it. 

Our first stop was the Victoria and Albert Museum to speak to the museum curator that had contacted Vivian. None of the artwork in the home stood out to me as particularly valuable, but she had said that he was interested in several pieces. He wasn’t available, so we agreed to wait. Of course, Sherlock is never one for patience, so while I waited for Mister Bleek, Sherlock snooped around in the curator’s office. It didn’t take long before Sherlock returned, looking like the cat that got the canary. In hushed tones, he detailed the emails that he had found on Bleek’s computer and seemed certain that we could catch him with the diamond (Sherlock was convinced he still had it with him in the museum). For the record, Lestrade, I suggested calling in the Yard at this point, but Sherlock insisted that we keep this neat and tidy. 

While we were waiting for Bleek to return, Sherlock did some research on his phone, and was able to piece together a likely story. We just needed Bleek to return and confirm and then ask him to bring the diamond back to Vivian. Simple as that, right? 

Of course not. The-man-we-assumed-to-be-Bleek took one look at us and ran, locking himself in a cupboard until we eventually left, not wanting to make too much of a scene (a first for us, to be sure). 

We returned later that night for a stakeout. Bleek left his office around 20:00, just an hour after the museum had closed to the public. We followed him down to the vaults and assuming that he was making a break for it, Sherlock tackled him while I grabbed the velvet bag he had been hiding inside his jacket folds. We ran back upstairs, intent to get the diamond back to its rightful owner, but were stopped by none other than Sally Donovan and a few other officers from the Yard, investigating a silent alarm that had been triggered. We told them where to find Duncan Bleek, but Donovan’s always had it in for Sherlock and she wasn’t keen on letting us go. We were hauled off to the station, where we finally got the whole story from Duncan. It was even wilder than Sherlock had imagined.

Barnaby Skaggs had been a museum curator in the 1950s and had fallen in love with a woman far out of his social standings. Her father would not let them marry, but they had a long romantic tryst, with Barnaby often coming to her house to help her sneak out of her window at night and join him. This lasted for a year or so, until she found another man, one with money, to marry and uphold the family name. Barnaby was understandably heartbroken and desperate to prove to her that he was just as worthy of her love as her new beau, despite not having a lot of money. So he snuck into the museum one night and nicked a diamond from one of the collections, nothing too flashy and nothing that would stand out as missing to the common observer or even to any of the other curators, as the precious gemstone collection was solely his responsibility. The next evening, he went to her house to give it to her but she met him at the door with bad news; she was engaged to Sir Moneybags and had to break it off with him. In a fit of rage, Barnaby threw the diamond at her and left, never to see her again. 

It wasn’t until years later that the diamond was even reported as missing from the museum, but it was thought to be such an inconsequential piece of the collection that no one paid it much mind. That is, until a man named Duncan Bleek came to be hired for a complete rejuvenation of the precious gemstone exhibit. His research led him to discover that the museum owned a sapphire-and-diamond coronet once worn by Queen Victoria, but as it was missing one of the smaller, side diamonds, it had never been taken from its safe and displayed. He set off on a search, contacting each of the former curators to learn of its potential whereabouts. 

When he spoke to Barnaby, he heard the entire story. Barnaby was old, nearing the end of his life, and Duncan promised that he would get the diamond back to its rightful owner. So Duncan contacted Vivian’s family and got himself invited over for dinner. On a trip to the loo, he helped himself to a tour of the house and found the diamond laying out in plain sight on top of the bureau. It seemed too good to be true so the next night, Duncan broke into the house, using a ladder to climb up into the window that he had purposely left unlocked. 

After that, Sherlock assumes Duncan must have panicked, worried that Vivian would have reported it stolen. He’d been carrying it around with him until the afternoon we arrived, when he put it in a temporary setting in the coronet. When we mistakenly thought he was escaping a second time, he was actually returning the entire piece (hence the velvet bag) to the vaults to be catalogued later. 

Which obviously led to us, two days after receiving Vivian’s first email, kitted up in museum security uniforms, being mistakenly arrested by several of New Scotland Yard’s finest because we’d triggered a silent alarm and were caught red-handed with what appeared to be a stolen and precious jewel.

After quite a lot of explaining, mostly from Duncan, and Lestrade’s good word, Sherlock and I were free to go. I don’t believe we’ll be making a future out of jewel heists any time soon but I am proud to say that Victoria’s jewels have been restored to their full brilliance and will be displayed soon. 

  
  



End file.
